Unsplash + Offscreen: Show us your favourite way to log off

Unsplash, the photo-sharing site that lets you download and use thousands of free photos without any restrictions, has become a bit of a phenomenon. What started as a side project attracted tens of millions of downloads in its first year alone. Today more than 250,000 photos are downloaded every single day.

I'm an Unsplash fan too. In fact, I use photos from Unsplash for this very blog. So when Mikael Cho reached out to ask whether I'm interested in running a little campaign together, it was an easy decision.

Under the theme Life Off Screen we've started a new collection all about our favourite ways to log off. My first shot: I love browsing book and magazine stores, so I've chosen a photo of a recent visit of our Berlin stockist, Do You Read Me.

I'm now calling on the Offscreen community – you – to submit your photos of your favourite things or activities that you turn to once you turned off your device. What's your favourite way of spending time away from your screens?

How it works

Use the link below to upload your photos. (You'll need to create an account if you don't have one already.)

With a bit of luck your photo will also be selected as a top-ten pick and appear in Unsplash's newsletter (sent to around 400,000 recipients) and on Unsplash's homepage. As a top-ten pick you also get a load of free Unsplash swag.

I can't wait to see what you come up with. Happy snapping!

Results of our reader survey

A couple of weeks ago I asked you to fill out our reader survey so that I could get a better picture of my audience and collect some basic feedback along the way. 554 of you submitted answers. Thanks so much! You can view the results of the multiple choice questions here:

Of those who answered the two open-ended feedback questions (one on Offscreen Magazine, the other on Offscreen Dispatch) the vast majority had nothing but praise. I'm always flattered by this (thanks again!) but of course it's the critical feedback that helps me improve and make changes. Though, the contradictory nature of the responses really surprised me. Here are some verbatim answers:

On the focus on tech

A few of the interviews lately have been less tech-industry focussed which is fine and understandable, but isn't my personal preference. Not a huge issue, though!– vs –
Broaden the industries you cover in the magazine and also cover photography, art, illustration, typography, etc.

Bring back the glued binding. This new one looks so very wrong.– vs –
I like the redesign, especially the binding.

On the length of interviews

I love the longform articles. Such a treat to have some well curated, deep discussion. The tone of voice is ace too. More of these would be welcome.– vs –
Interviews can be very long and it's not fun for readers with limited attention span. Perhaps more bite-sized articles and features would be good.

On featuring well-known people

Focus on industry leaders. Julie Zhou was a big name which attracted me to that last issue.– vs –
Interview less known people, from non-english speaking countries. I was a bit disappointed to see Julie Zhuo on cover of the new mag. She's too 'mainstream'.

On diversity

Keep it up with the diverse voices please!– vs –
More diversity! The magazine is still mostly white guys in the U.S. Let's get some gender/racial/ethnic/geographic diversity in there.

This is just a small selection. Reading through the hundreds of entries, it felt like almost every piece of feedback was immediately annulled by the next. To be honest, I'm not sure if I actually can take anything away from it. Perhaps that by landing in the middle I'm doing it right? I'm not sure.

Some other responses that caught my eye and that I wanted to briefly touch on here:

On Offscreen Dispatch

I actually preferred the old layout due to the use of imagery for each link. Helps provide context and captures attention.

Many of you mentioned that they preferred the old layout of my weekly newsletter (then called The Modern Desk) because it showed more images of the products. That's actually not true. I've always only showed images of the tangible products (and not the digital ones). It might be the layout overall that gives that impression.

Sometimes there are some really cool products but the 'reviews' don't seem like you actually used them.

That's correct. I don't review any of the products in the newsletter unless I clearly say so. There is no way I can find the time to buy and review 5–6 products every week. All of the items in the newsletter are purely suggestions – things I've stumbled upon and want to share because they caught my eye.

I canceled it because it makes me click to read. I like newsletters to contain all information without having to open my browser.

Hmm.

On sharing more of the behind the scene

Several of you said they wanted to know more about what's happening behind the scenes. This is something I actually really enjoy sharing. If you have been following me for a while you will know that I write and share a lot of what's happening behind the scenes right here on the blog. If you aren't aware of the depth of the blog yet, have a browse and then grab the RSS feed to always get the latest posts. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to blog as much as I'd like recently.

I'd prefer if you gave away the content for free and find another revenue model.

I also wish we could end capitalism but sadly we're not there, yet.

Letter to the editor

Thanks for the speedy delivery of the three issues of Offscreen. I’ve just finished issue 14, now going through 13 and I already feel thankful for what they have done for me. It immediately convinced me to subscribe.

I started out as a graphic designer with a ‘focus on web’ 18 years ago, and then worked at a design agency, before becoming an entrepreneur 10 years ago. I’ve grown up along with the web – learning new tools and new ways of thinking, and incorporating it all into what I offer my clients.

Along the way I’ve lost my interest in design-focused magazines. More recently, I have been on the lookout for something that was more in line with my point of view, something that would enrich my thinking as an entrepreneur. And Offscreen is the perfect fit. The human perspective, the background stories with all the ups and downs really motivate me to continue chasing my dream to create products that help and inspire others.

Thank you very much for that!

Sincerely,
Dirkjan

Building a custom magazine subscription management system

This post is an edited version of an email from September 2016 that was part of my Rebranding Diary. You can see much of what I discussed in that email live on our website now, like our multi-tier subscription model that charges readers on a per-issue basis.

Offscreen’s original order management system (OMS) has served me very well over the years. It solved a fundamental problem every magazine maker faces: managing orders for single issues and for subscriptions (which are essentially orders for future issues) in one place, while keeping customer data up-to-date and optimising orders for shipping. It connected directly with PayPal’s IPN system, which has its flaws (like everything PayPal-related) but is extremely easy and fairly flexible to run.

When we created this system almost five years ago, there were a lot fewer out-of-the-box ecommerce tools available. Today, between Shopify, Squarespace, bigCartel, and a whole host of other shopping cart apps, it begs the question why I should develop my own customer and inventory management tool.

Why not go with Shopify?

While the above mentioned apps are extremely powerful (especially Shopify with its own app store), they don’t exactly suit indie magazine makers who often publish new issues infrequently and rely heavily on subscribers to manage their cashflow. Available subscription management plugins don’t cater for this type of product either. Most subscription SaaS products either focus on digital subscription management or sell monthly subscription boxes which are completely different beasts to printed publications that come out every few months. While customising these tools is possible, they are just not meant to be used that way.

I also don’t use any of the larger fulfilment services like Shipstation or Shipwire because Offscreen is shipped through a small logistics company in Berlin. Their low handling fees combined with German Post’s low postage makes shipping Offscreen around the world possible. Going through a small service provider like that also means I don’t have any fancy APIs to work with – instead I export a weekly order sheet in the form of a CSV file and make it available to my shipper in Berlin.

When it comes to handling payments, almost none of the existing apps offer recurring, but infrequent charges. Like many other indie magazines, Offscreen doesn’t adhere to a very strict publishing cycle. I aim for a new issue every four months, but it sometimes varies by a few weeks. Many of the available SaaS products offer recurring charges such as every week, month, quarter or year, but I still haven’t come across a tool that allows me to charge customers whenever I'm ready to ship a new issue. Essentially, I’d like to store my customers’ payment information securely and then trigger a charge by the time I release a new issue.

All of this means that creating a custom plugin for Shopify would be almost as complicated and expensive as creating my own order/subscription management system. And so I chose to go with the latter because it gives me a lot more flexibility.

The ideal order and subscription management tool

So what would the ideal buying experience for readers and the ideal order management system for a publisher look like? I've been pondering that question for the last few months, if not years. Here are some of the features I’d love to use:

Make magazine subscriptions more like digital SaaS subscriptions
Most indie magazine subscriptions are simple pre-orders for the next n issues, paid a year in advance. They usually don’t auto-renew which means readers have to be reminded to come back to the site to buy another one-year subscription. Rather than making a big commitment upfront, what if we let readers subscribe on a per-issue basis? Once subscribed, Offscreen charges readers a few weeks before the new issue is released. They can cancel or change tiers any time.

Offer different tiers of support
So many of my readers want to support the magazine beyond just buying a copy. What if, rather than just buying a standard subscription, they could choose from a few different tiers according to the level of support they want to give? I can imagine at least three different tiers – subscriber, supporter, and patron. The higher tiers include a little gift to show my appreciation for their support. Subscribers can change tiers in between issues.

Integrate the patron model into subscriptionsOffscreen patrons pay a fee to have their name included as supporters in the back of each issue. I think all small indie publications should consider having such a patronage model for their most loyal readers. Their extra contribution goes a long way in making it a sustainable publishing business. Ideally that patron model would be more deeply integrated in the checkout process so that more people can become a patron without me manually handling every single request.

Provide a simple account interface to manage orders/subscriptions
I think a lot of us don’t like buying subscriptions to physical products because there is often no sense of control. You subscribe to a magazine online, pay the yearly fee, and then hope that you don’t move houses in the next twelve months. How do I change my shipping address in between issues? Do I need to renew manually? What if my credit card expires? I want Offscreen readers to feel like they are in control of their subscription through a simple account interface – ideally without having to create a login/password.

Offer discounts to students and libraries
I feel strongly about supporting the next generation of techies and making Offscreen available through more public libraries. Offering EDU discounts isn’t as straightforward as it seems because it requires some sort of eligibility check during the checkout process. We’re exploring using this openly available database to check customers’ email addresses and apply an EDU discount of around 25%. (Note: we didn’t manage to release this feature with our launch, but it’s still on our to-do list.)

Streamline the management of all of the above
The only reason why I’m able to run Offscreen by myself is that I streamline the admin side of things as much as possible. The ideal system is perfectly tuned to what I need to get done every day, week, month, and quarter. Creating a completely customised system allows me to avoid unnecessary steps and optimises the process between receiving an order and sending out issues.

Some of the above features are ‘experimental’ to say the least. Other publishers I spoke to said I should continue offering standard yearly subscriptions (and this new system still allows me to do that if I change my mind), but I’m eager to see whether the age-old model of magazine subscriptions can be improved through a per-issue model that behaves more like other digital subscriptions we already have.

Using Bootstrap, I quickly created all the necessary templates for the back-end so that my developer Dan Rowden can get started with development. I also spent a lot of time on a very detailed document (23 pages in Google Docs and counting) to outline all the different features, edge cases, etc. It’s been an interesting experience working through every detail of such a big project. There is so much stuff happening behind the scenes that is necessary for things to run smoothly but that nobody will ever see or even know exists.

Stitch binding for easy reading

After a few readers asked me whether the binding of the new issue looks ‘unfinished’ on purpose, here some more background on our new, premium binding technique.

All previous issues of Offscreen use a pretty standard binding method called ‘perfect binding’. Tightly wrapped by the cover material, a thin layer of glue holds the content pages in place. ‘Perfect binding’ is not the cheapest method but it’s proven reliable and fairly straight-forward during production which is why it has become a quasi-standard for most publications.

Because the glued spine is quite rigid and usually doesn’t bend open (although you can break it if you force it) some information is lost in the centre of the spread. Depending on other factors, like the paper type, the page count, and the publication’s dimensions, it can be difficult to keep the publication open. This video by Works That Work illustrates this really well.

As you would expect, Germans have a wonderfully descriptive word for this: Klammerwirkung (the peg effect). If you own older issues of Offscreen – in particular issues 5 and 6 – you would have experienced it yourself. At the time, I changed the paper to a heavier stock which increased the Klammerwirkung and gave your hands/fingers a real workout while reading.

There are a few ways around this problem. The early issue of Works That Work in the video above uses a simple saddle-stitch binding (staples) which works well up to a certain number of pages. Then there is a fairly new binding method called Otabind which Works That Work used in later issues as the page count increased. This technique tackles some of the issues above by detaching the cover from the spine. However, depending on the total number of pages and the cover material, it can make the spine of the cover a bit wiggly and flimsy.

I’ve looked at a whole range of publications and a binding technique that stood out was the so-called Schweizer Broschur (Swiss brochure). With this technique the content pages are only attached to one side of the cover. If combined with a more expensive stitch-binding technique – a series of threads literally stitching the pages together – the Schweizer Broschur can deliver one of the best reading experiences out there. It’s also great from an editorial design perspective: because it lies completely flat I can work with the full area of each spread without the centre being swallowed up.

I can certainly understand why the exposed spine looks ‘unfinished’ to some, but it’s one of those classic ‘form follows function’ cases. The experience it provides makes up for the slightly unrefined look. Once you open the magazine and explore its contents I think you’ll notice how nice it is to be able to do so without requiring any effort at all. Eating your lunch while reading Offscreen has never been easier. 😉